The Artist's Handbook - Hardcover

Ray Smith is a writer, illustrator and lecturer at many art schools, including Chelsea School of Art and University of Plymouth. In 1990 he was appointed by HM Government to serve as a member of the Art Working Group for the National Curriculum. He has won a number of art awards, including a Royal Society of Arts Art for Architecture Award. Ray lives in Somerset.

In this handsome and substantial handbook, a classic approach to the technical aspects of art, British artist Smith presents a wealth of information on established materials that he organizes first by function--pigments, resins, solvents, and the like--then by media categorized according to discipline. For instance, his section on drawing contains detailed entries on oil pastels, charcoal, and conte crayon. Painting elicits descriptions and depictions of the uses of watercolor, oils, and acrylics. In the printmaking and digital media and photograpzxzhy categories, Smith focuses more on method than media, with subsections on intaglio, lithography, and screenprinting in the former, and, in the latter, a 10-page discussion of computer manipulation of digital images. Throughout, he amply employs full-color illustrations and demonstrations as examples and teaching aids. This excellent overall guide to the visual arts boasts multiple appendixes on color, perspective, health, and safety. With glossary and index, this far-ranging overview is hard to beat. Whitney Scott
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